The present inventors, students of the art of baseball hitting, have observed that the difference between a good hitter and an average hitter involves hand speed, i.e., above average hitters have more hand speed than average hitters.
The quickness of one's hands depends to a large extent upon the strength of one's hands. Players with weak hands are unable to swing the bat with as much speed as those players with stronger hands.
Unfortunately, no effective training equipment has been heretofore developed that enables a batter to develop his or her hand speed. Instead, batting coaches have traditionally instructed poor and average batters to simply practice more. While practice does strengthen one's hands and thus enable one to swing the bat through the strike zone faster, it does not normally result in greatly enhanced batting statistics. Thus, coaches often conclude that some players are simply more talented than others whereas the purported talent may be nothing more than stronger hands.
A weighted glove is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,042,975 to Elliott, Jr., et al. (1977); the weights are plate members intended to protect the batter's hands from pitches and, as such, the glove has little or no utility in connection with batting practice.
Other weighted exercise gloves, none of which can be effectively worn by baseball players during batting practice for practical reasons, are shown in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,838,853 to Fredenhagen (1974); 4,034,979 to Wester (1977); 4,247,097 to Schwartz (1981); 4,253,660 to Tiktin (1981); 4,326,706 to Guthrie, et al. (1982); 4,330,120 to Netti (1982); 4,556,215 to Tarbox, et al. (1985); 4,575,075 to Tarbox, et al. (1986); and 4,684,123 to Fabry (1987).
Until such time as a weighted glove that meets the needs of baseball hitters is provided, there will be no training equipment that will allow slow batting speed hitters to improve their skills.